ISM SEMINAR
Spring Term 2014
Speaker:
Professor Haridimos Tsoukas, WBS and the University of Cyprus
Title:
What has process philosophy to offer management studies? Resources for process thinking
Date:
Wednesday 19 March 2014
Venue:
B0.01, WBS, Scarman Road
Time:
14.00
Abstract:
Process philosophy advances a worldview that sees processes, rather than substances, as the
basic forms of the universe. A process view rests on a relational ontology, namely the
recognition that everything that is has no existence apart from its relation to other things. A
process orientation prioritizes activity over outcome, change over persistence, novelty over
stasis, expression over determination. I will argue that, by seeing process as fundamental,
such an approach does not deny the existence of entities, but insists on unpacking them to
reveal the complex processes - sequences of activities and transactions - that are involved in
and contribute to their constitution. Drawing, mainly, on the philosophy of Henri Bergson and
Alfred North Whitehead, I will offer a vocabulary to help advance process thinking in
organizational and management research. I will argue that these philosophers help us better
understand time and events and, by focusing on experience, they make it possible for
management researchers to both stay close to the world of practice and to capture the
dynamic character of organizational life. I will discuss a number of papers of process-oriented
research in organization studies and will offer suggestions for how to develop further process
thinking in the field.
Biography:
Haridimos Tsoukas holds the Columbia Ship Management Chair in Strategic Management at
the Department of Business and Public Administration, University of Cyprus, Cyprus and is a
Distinguished Research Environment Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business
School, University of Warwick, UK. He obtained his PhD at the Manchester Business School
(MBS), University of Manchester, and has worked at MBS, the University of Essex, the
University of Strathclyde, and at the ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece. He is the cofounder and co-organizer of the International Symposium on Process Organization Studies,
and co-editor of the series Perspectives on Process Organization Studies, Oxford University
Press (both with Ann Langley). He was Editor-in-Chief of Organization Studies (2003-2008). His
research interests include: knowledge-based perspectives on organizations and management;
organizational becoming; practical reason in management and policy studies; and metatheoretical issues in organizational research.
Contact:
Alison Solman, ISM Group
Alison.solman@wbs.ac.uk
024 7652 4101
This seminar has been organised by the iSM Group.